Recchi plays the hero with OT game-winner

14:33: Tie hockey game. Big Zdeno Chara mixed it up down low during the power play and flipped a second effort attempt past Price after he managed to stop the first swat from Mark Recchi. The power play score began with a big wrist shot from the right point by Marc Savard. One more goal from Chara will put him at a career-best 20 for the season, and might put a little more shine on his Norris Trophy candidacy.

5:43: The Habs are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the Bruins, and Tim Thomas is playing his best of the three periods tonight. A couple big saves when the defense started running around a little bit in Boston’s end during the last possession.

5:00: Great save by Thomas on a one-man rush by Chris Higgins as he managed to slice through a pair of Boston defenders.

2:02: Another sprawling save by Thomas on a Kovalev rush up the right side. Tonight Kovalev has looked like the guy that was a Bruins killer last season.

0:00: And the Canadiens crowd goes wild high-fiving at the Garden. Yes, the game is going to OT, but the Habs have clinched a playoff spot with their one point earned by pushing things to overtime.

OT: Mark Recchi does it again. A great set-up from Patrice Bergeron, and the 41-year-old “rent-a-player” banged it home to send the Bruins’ masses home euphoric. We can only hope that the hockey gods deem this Habs/Bruins worthy in the first round of the plays. Seven games just like tonight’s instant classic would be epic.

A Mark Recchi score in OT gives the B’s a rousing 5-4 win. The Bruins have two games left against lesser lights in Buffalo and New York (Islanders, not Rangers) and then the playoffs begin in earnest.